


Inevitability

by daisybrien



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Comfort/Angst, Developing Relationship, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Relationships, Other, Post - Fall of Wall Maria, Unresolved Emotional Tension, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-15
Updated: 2015-07-15
Packaged: 2018-04-09 13:15:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4350206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daisybrien/pseuds/daisybrien
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Maria falls, they keep each other upright.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Inevitability

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Thepencilsharpener](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thepencilsharpener/gifts).



“So it finally happened.”

Hange utters the words only days after the tragedy, when their uniforms are ragged and their bones are aching with the exhaustion from hours of fight, the dust from the rock and rubble of the defeated walls choking their lungs, leaving a fine dusting of powder on their leather boots. They stand above him, their back straight with dignity but their weary eyes dead with defeat. Blades hang limp in their calloused hands, the dregs of steam still floating from the metal they’re too tired to place back in their sheaths. Goggles pin their sweaty bangs to their face, taking their position over their eyes as they look out into darkness of the grassy expanse of land they had defended in vain.

“It was only a matter of time,” Levi grumbles bitterly. He looks down at his hands, twisting against the thighs of his legs. Red seeps into the cracks of his palm, the lines of his knuckles, some still fresh and flowing while the rest dries brown against his skin. His nails trace the lines of his hand, his stomach twisting as the blood is unearthed from the crevices. He wants to ask them if someone has water to wash with, then decides against it, a waste of resource on his incessant habits. “These walls can’t protect us forever.”

He looks back up at them again, eyes scrutinizing how the tangles of their mangled hair spill over their shoulders, shadowing their tired eyes. They take in a shaky breath, their body seeming to sway with the force of it before collapsing.

Levi is about to jump to grab them before he realizes it’s a fall with consciousness, their mind aiding their body down into a safe slump on the cold stone as their limbs give out, refusing to hold them up any longer. They settle beside him, their hips pressing together in a moment of closeness that Levi craves in this moment, only for them to move away. They scoot forward, leaving him to stare at their back, letting their feet dangle listlessly over the edge of Wall Rose.

“What the hell are we going to do now?” Hange breathes. Wisps of their hair float in the breeze, turning a bright gold in the light of the sun coming over the horizon. They turn their eyes towards Levi, rimmed with dark circles telling of the horrors the two of them had faced in the mere hours since the chaos unfolded, waiting patiently for his thoughts. When they get nothing but his taciturn stare in return, they huff out a bitter laugh, the corner of their mouth turning up in a grin. Levi only stares, questioning what could be so funny in the first place. Then again, sometimes when life throws its absolute worst you can’t do anything but laugh, and he knows the laugh isn’t from amusement.

The two sit in silence, watching soldiers mill across the wall’s top. Many of them sit or stand in defeat, their crumpled faces and hunched postures a visual sign of their emotional forfeit. Some walk back and forth, moving supplies to and fro and back again, trying to find something to do in an attempt to be useful. Levi laughs at the stupidity of it, sneers resentfully at everyone’s dull expressions; there is no use for the likes of them on the wall’s top anymore, at least in the eyes of the rest of humanity.

A soft glow begins to shine over the horizon to his left, the sky illuminated in an array of colours like mixed paints across an artist’s pallet. The colours of the fields below them start to brighten, the new morning bringing out the greens of the foliage. They turn towards the light, the curve of the sun starting to peek out. 

Sunrise brings with it a fake sense of security, the sun’s warmth burning at their skin, previously shivering in the night’s brutal winds, cold sweat gluing their clothes to their bodies. It’s light also gives them a false sense of comfort, as if it could expel the horrors of what darkness was known to automatically bring; it’s an unrealistic thought, the terrors of their work only awakening in the daytime. Levi looks out into the ever-brightening fields, Wall Maria nothing but a thin, grey line in the distance, it’s current state of breach reflecting how it looks to him, as nothing more than insubstantial. He pretends he can see the ruins of Shingashina from where he is, pretends he can see the glow of candles and kerosene lamps through each house window, abandoned in the rush to escape and left to burn like a tiny cluster of stars, as if no one had ever left. But they had left, each home and their memories left to crumble and rot, the rubble of the city a living monument to the nightmare he knows has only begun.

“We failed,” they say softly. Levi can’t see their eyes behind their goggles, the glass shining with the rising sun’s brightness; but he sees tears leak from the bottom, wonders of the wetness pooling inside the glass, their eyes drowning in it. They lean forward, hands on their knees, and Levi feels the tiniest thrill of fear in his chest. He wants to laugh at that, the fact that he can block out even the smallest twinges of doubt for days on end, no lack of sleep or rest threatening his strength and bravado in the face of a titan’s maw, but Hange’s body leaning slightly over the edge makes his heart jump, his hand almost reaching to grab the back of their cloak. He wonders if they’re thinking of jumping off. He’s sure everyone is thinking the thought by now.

“Failing isn’t new to us,” Levi says. He pushes forward, their shoulders brushing against each other. He allows Hange’s presence to be a form of reassurance to him, letting out a sigh of relief at having them alive and breathing, still upright and there beside him, heart breaking but still beating. He reaches forward, lifting Hange’s goggles onto their forehead, watching as the tears flow down their cheeks freely, streaking the dirt and dust settled in their pores. He brushes one finger down the curve of their cheek, drying the wetness, and even Hange starts at the intimacy of it, staring at him with wide eyes. His movement stutters to a stop, hand falling limply on his knee. He looks down, heat rising in his face, avoiding their gaze.

“Well,” Hange stutters out, breath shaky, “we haven’t failed this badly before. This is a new level of failure to us.”

Levi turns around again, watching soldiers run back and forth, their eyes shattered and gaits slow and slouching. What worries him more than the hopelessness in their faces are their numbers, dwindled until they were useless. He knows they won’t survive another expedition, let alone another chance in Wall Maria again, not with so many casualties. He wonders how humanity is going to survive without its resources, wonders about the slim chances of ever gaining the space beyond Rose again, wonders if the government will decide to put the displaced refugees to use…

“It’s not our job to take care of the damn Walls,” Levi mutters, a pathetic excuse. “We just ended up being sent in to take care of the aftermath and get ourselves killed.”

Hange barks out a bitter laugh, hoarse and all too loud. “And you think that’s going to make people flock to our sides?” The ghost of a smile, no humor or glint of happiness in it, fades from their face as quickly as it appears. He’s not used to them like this, energy all but gone. “It seems like that’s all they want from us. To get ourselves killed. The only problem they’ll have after that is to find a different regiment to complain about.”

“I didn’t say it would solve our problems,” Levi says. “I just meant it to be a truth, a formality.”

“Formalities don’t really seem to be doing us any good right now, are they?” Hange says.

“Well, sorry for trying to say something to make you feel better.”

Hange gives him a sarcastic glare, eyebrows raised over unamused eyes, mouth pressed into a thin line. He expects them to scoff at him, start into the usual banter the two always found themselves in. They look out into the horizon, the green fields and dark patches of forest calm and peaceful to the unassuming, innocent eye. There really isn’t anything that they could do to feel better in the moment, the looming threat on their livelihood ever present in the disaster, the only home they’ve ever known in chaos. 

He also wonders if Hange’s searching for something dear to them in the expanse, a cozy home with rickety furniture and old heirlooms, surrounded by familiar streets once filled with the smiling faces of neighbours, all now empty and abandoned.

The scoff doesn’t come. Instead, a smile blooms on their face, sincere even through the weariness and grime, eyes shining with tears and something he can’t exactly place his finger on – he has never been one for reading people, only able to read the body language of the threatening or suspicious, and it is this revelation that makes him realize with a punch to the gut, as he looks at them, that their usual open gait and loud presence, and even the smile in this moment, were no more than signs of utmost trust.

“Thank you,” they say softly, blinking slowly. Their smile becomes lopsided, the shadow of their usual smirk making him breathe out a smidgen of his stress in a way he never thought it could. “At least, for trying in your own shitty way.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Levi snorts, knocking his shoulder against theirs before realizing the two of them are, in fact, on the edge of falling fifty metres to the unwelcome ground below.

“If I say I’m sorry, will you not try to push me over the edge again?” Hange says.

“Keep your mouth shut,” Levi deadpans. “You’ll have more luck with that.”

“Seriously though, don’t do that,” Hange murmurs. Despite their wariness on the edge, they give Levi a gentle nudge back, a soft bump of shoulder against shoulder. “I don’t want to die, at least not today.”

“Neither do I,” Levi murmurs.

“It’s good we both succeeded in not dying, then,” Hange chuckles. “Although we should move from the ledge if we want to make sure we don’t.”

“I didn’t mean-“ Levi stutters, looking down into his lap. Hange looks at him with furrowed eyebrows, head tilted to the side, their gaze sending him into a spiral of a sputtering mess. “Not that I want to die, I just mean that I don’t want you to. At least not soon.”

“Oh,” Hange breathes. Levi keeps his head down, staring down into his lap as though his hands fiddling with the loose strings in his cloak were the most captivating thing in the world. When he does chance a glance up at them, his eyes peeking through the curtain of black hair falling into his face, their expression is blank, looking at him with curious eyes. Their mouth breaks into another soft smile, setting his ears on fire, an uncomfortable warmth blooming in his cheeks and hands. 

“I’m guessing you really don’t want anyone to die, at the end of the day,” Hange grunts, “but I am flattered that you feel the need to tell me that up front.” They start to get up, pushing back from the ledge and groaning as their aching muscles lift them from the floor.

He notices the soldiers congregating in a herd of bodies, abandoning the duties they had tried to scrap up in their need to feel useful, any actual roles in sending supplies or the injured over the wall finally complete. They find their way towards the commander in a cluster, searching for him as though he can provide the relief they need after such a mess; Levi can barely hear Shadis’ voice over the din, the words unintelligible over the ruckus that had started up again at whatever new orders he had created, the man himself obscured by the growing crowd. He sees Mike’s towering form lingering at the back, probably out of courtesy to the shorter soldiers, Nanaba and Erwin flanking him. 

Levi starts to get up himself, muscles screaming in pain after the brief respite he had graciously accepted. The buzzing ache in his feet rises to a crescendo, and he hisses between his teeth, stone faced in his determination to hide any and all pain, trying to set his example, especially with many of the new recruits looking to him in their hopeless, fearful dazes. His movements are slow at first, feeling wounds and bruises open up, forming their own chorus of complaints with each motion, every part of his body in some sort of pain. He shuffles up to Hange, who waits for him expectantly with their arms crossed. They start to make their way into the crowd, turning back to look over their shoulder at Levi as he straggles behind them.

“I don’t want you to die either,” they say with the slightest of smirks, the corners of their eyes crinkling. “We’ll just have to promise to try staying alive for each other then, no matter how many people want us dead.”

With that, they turn back to the growing mass of people, their ponytail whipping back and forth, the wings embroidered to the green of their cloak fluttering in the air as it trails behind them the last thing he sees before they disappear into the crowd. He’s left squished between towering bodies, a sour taste in his mouth as he strains to hear Shadis’ words over the quieting crowd, and he only hopes he can try hard enough to fend off the inevitability of his death, no matter how difficult it would be to keep the promise of his life for them.


End file.
